Dog is man’s best friend — plain and simple. Unfortunately (and this is hopefully news to no one), dogs don’t live as long as humans do, and there comes a point in every man’s life when he will have to bury is four-legged bud.

Neil Rodriguez, a New York City resident who adopted his furry best friend from a shelter at just eight weeks old, recently took the now terminally ill 16-year-old pup on a cross country road trip as a final bonding activity before he says goodbye. Rodriguez drove 12,000 miles and explored 35 cities with his pit bull-lab mix, Poh.

Rodriguez said Poh’s big adventure was hatched after vets estimated that the near 16-year-old canine could have just days or weeks to live.

“They were like, we can’t tell you [how much time he has left] but you could have days. He could be gone any day,” his owner said while describing the dog as suffering from numerous tumors as well as kidney failure.

“I did not want to leave my dog knowing that he could go at any moment,” he said.

On March 6 the trio packed their bags — which included a daily IV drip for Poh — and headed down south until cutting west across Georgia and along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Once reaching Arizona Poh appeared remarkably well so their travels “ballooned from there,” Rodriguez said. That took them up through California to Seattle and back again.

Rodriguez chronicled the trip with his pooch by posting awesome photos on Instagram, some of which are below.

“‘This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog’. -Napoleon Bonaparte, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Napoleon was haunted by this scene until his own death.”

As I get ready for a deployment to Afghanistan, I wonder if my dog will remember me when I get home. I leave the room for two seconds and come back and he thinks I’ve been gone forever, What is he going to do after 10 months?

Fuck this comment. I don’t know if you have ever been a witness to the death of somebody you love, but all manliness and masculinity aside, it’s heartbreaking. Nothing else matters when they’re dying. School, work, nothing.

Maybe when you are on your deathbed, your friends and family with say, “Eh, no need to spend time with the guy, let’s just buy him a lavish gift instead!”

Dude it’s a dog, you’re comparing a human being to an animal. Yes I get that you can get attached to house pets but to say that it’s even remotely close to the death of a human family member is insane.

You’re average Person treats animals better than fellow human beings nowadays and that’s not a good thing

A dog will be by your side no matter what. Their level of loyalty is beyond my comprehension. You can rub its nose in its own piss when it pees in the house and it will still love you. With a human you have to worry about being stabbed in the back or being cheated (or a variety of other mistrust issues humans do) but there is none of that with a dog they want nothing more than to please their master, get scratched behind their ears, and occasionally to piss on your floor. All im getting at is that my dog has been by me through the severe lows of my life. I introduce him to anyone important to me. And if he doesnt like them, I dont like them. So you need to piss off guy, because ill trust Archer before I trust a human any day.